With the unrelenting eye of the media trained on quarterbacks Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota like Sauron on the One Ring, it could come as something of a shock to most should Florida linebacker Dante Fowler Jr. become the first player to step onstage and shake Roger Goodell’s hand at this year’s NFL draft.
For those who haven’t scoured through every scouting report or devoured the Internet’s seemingly infinite cornucopia of mock drafts, it’s been somewhat easy to forget that Winston and Mariota are just two of 256 names that will be called during draft weekend in Chicago.